Winners and Losers

I saw an article today entitled, "Who Will be the Winners Under Obama's Jobs Plan?" Apparently, the winners are going to be teachers, union labourers and other political friends of the President's. At least according to the article anyway. This started me thinking. Does the fact that only some citizens are going to be winners under this plan mean that others will be losers? I suspect that the answer is yes. After all, if some people are winners it follows that others must be losers. That's really the only other category that exists if you start classifying some people as winners and others as not.

I'm sure that if you asked Obama he would say that the intent of the Jobs Bill is to benefit everyone by creating a stronger economy. I have no reason to believe that he would be lying if he did. It probably really is his intention to improve the economy. However, we all know what paves the road to Hell. It is the actual effects of economic policy that are what really matter.

Given that the language used to promote the Jobs Bill is pretty much the same as the language that was used to promote every other round of economic stimulus recently, is it unfair to suspect that this bill is really just another stimulus bill except with a different name? The word 'stimulus' has become a rather dirty one in public circles of late. Perhaps, this bill is being marketed differently to avoid that stigma. The bill also has the same objectives as the previous rounds of stimulus; to improve unemployment, rebuild our infrastructure and improve education. If this really is just more of the same thing that has already failed, why are we doing it again? Are we really stupid enough to keep banging our heads against the same brick wall?

The mere fact that an article that was obviously slanted in favour of the bill could find winners under the bill goes a long way toward proving that the bill does favour some people over others. If the bill helps some and just as much as it harms others, what good is it? If it merely takes money out of one person's pocket and puts it in the pocket of another, how is it helping? Presumably the person who was taxed so another person can spend would have spent the money on something. Odds are it would've been something that they felt would improve the quality of their own lives. Instead they are forced to pay someone to build some public works project that might or might not be useful. There has been more than one project that turned out to be as useful as Alaska's famous 'bridge to nowhere.' Sure after the project is done everyone can see the new structure, but no one sees all of the things that the people who were originally taxed would've done with the money. If they had been able to keep their own money they would've bought myriad other products and services that are much more likely to be beneficial to them personally. But, since this is spread over millions of people all across the country, it is much harder to see the impact than it is with something that is large and easily located like a bridge or a road. At best, this bill is playing a zero sum game. Some must lose so that others might gain and there is no net improvement in the economy. This is why none of the other stimulus bills worked and it is why this one will also fail.